Havana Syndrome: U.S. and Canadian diplomats targeted with possible weapon causing brain injury and neurological symptoms

leokitten

leokitten

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Havana Syndrome: U.S. and Canadian diplomats targeted with possible weapon causing brain injury and neurological symptoms

CBS News/60 Minutes main story/video
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brain-...ork-of-hostile-foreign-government-60-minutes/

CBS News/60 Minutes overtime video
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-an-invisible-weapon-targeting-u-s-diplomats-60-minutes/

NBC News investigative report:
https://www.today.com/video/victim-...acks-on-us-diplomats-speaks-out-1375740483790

For those who know from the Cuba story it’s now gone beyond that to diplomats in China.

What is so interesting and relevant is that these diplomats’ illnesses and symptoms are initially not being believed and some have challenged that it’s mass hysteria.

They also have some key symptoms in common with ME which is very intriguing.
 
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leokitten said:
The government and consulted scientists believe it’s most likely a microwave based targeted weapon.
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Acoustic weapons is the working theory, as some victims claim to have heard strange noises before they felt ill. And directional, since no one around them heard it and a few said it came and went as they moved around.

One of many hypotheses, none particularly solid, but there are claims of such weapons being developed to use as crowd control so it's at least plausible.
 
rvallee said:
Acoustic weapons is the working theory, as some victims claim to have heard strange noises before they felt ill. And directional, since no one around them heard it and a few said it came and went as they moved around.

One of many hypotheses, none particularly solid, but there are claims of such weapons being developed to use as crowd control so it's at least plausible.
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US Intelligence thinks Russia may have microwaved US embassies in Cuba, China
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...y-have-microwaved-us-embassies-in-cuba-china/

When you fire microwaves at a person’s head they can experience something called the “Frey effect, also known as the microwave auditory effect (MAE)—in which microwaves induce the sensation of sounds (or even speech) inside a person's head.”

This is also in line with the fact that people covered their ears and heads and it did not affect the sound at all.
 
The babies, toddlers and pets of diplomats were also having major symptoms of brain trauma, such as throwing up, headaches, balance problems, nose bleeds. In China and Cuba they were supposedly attacking people in their apartments and homes with their families and pets, not at the embassy or consulate building.

You will see in videos that the CBS News producers went into this with very skeptical beliefs but after investigating this for over a year now find that there is a lot of evidence that these attacks were real and that sufferers have evidence of brain trauma. Small children and pets are not very susceptible to hysteria or psychogenic illness.

In addition, the clinicians and researchers at University of Pennsylvania and Univerisity of Miami medical centers studying sufferers from Cuba and China have concluded that they have all the symptoms of brain trauma.
 
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I specifically made this post because of the parallels there are with ME/CFS — sufferers not being believed since standard tests show nothing wrong even though doctors find and clearly acknowledge neurological clinical symptoms.

CBS News is a major news organization and 60 Minutes is one of the premier investigative news shows in the U.S. They wouldn’t broadcast this story on prime time TV without doing a detailed investigation revealing significant evidence supporting it.
 
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U.S. Diplomats With Mysterious Illness in Cuba Had Inner-Ear Damage, Doctors Say
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/world/americas/cuba-embassy-attacks.html
Two years after Americans posted at the United States Embassy in Havana began experiencing the peculiar phenomenon, doctors at the University of Miami on Wednesday published a scientific paperthat confirms what these patients have said all along: Their condition is real, not the result of mass hysteria, a response to intense news media coverage or a stress reaction to being evacuated, as doctors in Cuba had suggested.

“These people were injured,” said Dr. Michael E. Hoffer, the director of the university’s Vestibular and Balance Program and lead author of the study. “We’re not sure how. The injury resulted in ear damage and some trouble thinking.”
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The dizziness and cognitive problems that followed — including severe insomnia and nausea when using a computer — were so intense that at least one State Department employee went into early retirement this year. Another person who experienced a similar phenomenon in China went on leave. The State Department would not say how many people had returned to work.
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The authors of the University of Miami study said it was the only one to document the medical examinations that took place soon after the sounds were heard, before news media reports or workers’ compensation claims could have affected results. The study does not offer any theory as to what caused the injuries, but Dr. Hoffer, who specializes in concussions, said he now felt confident that doctors can screen for the condition — and treat it.

The doctors examined 25 patients and 10 of their housemates, plus another 100 people based in Cuba who did not show symptoms. The patients were strapped to a rotating chair in a small, completely darkened room, while specialized goggles recorded their eye movements. The doctors then tested their sense of up and down.

“What we noticed is universal damage to the gravity organs in the ear,” Dr. Hoffer said. “The ear has a bunch of different balance organs — and two of them are gravity organs — and those are damaged in everyone.”

After suffering the damage, the patients’ bodies spend so much energy trying to stay balanced that it wipes them out, he said.
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People affected have shown symptoms “similar to those noted following concussion or minor traumatic brain injury,” including dizziness, headaches, hearing loss, and balance, visual and cognitive problems, the statement said.
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He said none of his clients were feeling entirely better. One young woman recently took a leave of absence from work.

The woman who recently retired said that the study validated the embassy employees, who were not always taken seriously, particularly if they were older or female.

The woman, who did not want her name published for fear of retaliation by the culprits of the attacks, said she felt a bit better now that she no longer spends her days on a computer. When she tried working last year, she would last no more than an hour and a half before starting to feel nauseated.

Although she feels vertigo less frequently, she said her brain still does not function as it did before she heard the noise.

Mr. Zaid, who represents her, said the government needs to learn more about what happened and why. The study, he said, “is simply one piece of a puzzle, the final picture of which is still elusive.”
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NBC News investigative report video on China attacks:

https://www.today.com/video/victim-...acks-on-us-diplomats-speaks-out-1375740483790

Lawyer on video said doctors and researchers actually found distinct abnormalities on MRI and CT scans consistent with concussion/mild traumatic brain injury. They said the damage is permanent.

NIH is actually studying the syndrome, it’s called “Havana Syndrome.”

Again in this video the person describes their dogs vomiting blood, not wanting to enter the apartment after being outside, finding them shivering under the bed covers when the daughter and mother would come home, acting very strangely around the living room as if they could feel something in the living room.
 
Drawing additional parallels to ME/CFS, if you can believe it there was a response letter to the JAMA study from U Penn abowve from a Robert Bartholomew, who argued that all these diplomats, their families, their pets have some form of mass psychogenic illness:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2697001

He does this with absolutely zero scientific evidence. Bartholomew has close ties with Simon Wessely and you will see in the reference section he coauthored at least one paper with him.
 
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@leokitten

These stories have been doing the rounds since embassies and military bases first started using microwave communications. No proof, or evidence, that they are actually used as weapons, or ever have been outside of a research establishment, has ever been produced.

It's the 1960s equivalent of mobile phone cancer or powerline scares.

My posts reflected that I am aware of the history of such stories. I did not state or imply that any people claiming to have suffered from attacks by 'invisible weapons' were making their symptoms up.
 
I'm wondering what does everyone think about the overlapping symptoms to ME/CFS? Of course not that we were targeted with any weapon :laugh:, but could it be that we, through other mechanisms, have experienced traumatic brain injury?

Here are the symptoms mentioned by diplomat patients and clinicians in the videos/articles:
  • cognitive dysfunction
  • light and sound sensitivity
  • fatigue
  • balance problems and vertigo
  • emotionality and irritability
  • headaches
  • nausea
  • visual disturbances/blurred vision
  • memory loss
  • tinnitus
  • difficulty recalling words
  • sleep disturbances/insomnia
Do balance/vestibular problems from brain damage to the vestibular system, brain stem, cerebellum drive ME in a subgroup? I've wondered that given that I have significant balance and vertigo problems since getting ME. My body feels like it's rocking/wobbling, losing its orientation in space, and constantly trying to correct my equilibrium. Even when lying in bed it feels something is shaking or rocking the bed and that my body is moving even though I am perfectly still.

Is the body simply getting exhausted from trying to constantly keep balance and getting faulty information from relevant systems? It's well known that balance disorders also cause cognitive dysfunction and other seemingly unrelated symptoms.
 
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